


Tale As Old As Time

by imaginary_golux



Series: Fractured Fairy Tales [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Fluff, M/M, Pining, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7115374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While looking desperately for the medicine needed to cure his wife, Kes Dameron finds an ancient castle inhabited by a terrifying creature who trades the priceless medicine for the promise of company. Poe takes his father's place to seal the bargain.</p><p>Or: you all know how this one goes.</p><p>Beta by my Best Beloved, patient wrangler of plotbunnies and reviewer of dialogue, the one and only Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kes Dameron comes home from his supply run with an expression on his face that Poe has never seen before. It’s - despair, that’s what it is. Raw, desperate, bone-deep despair.

But he puts the medicine on the table, the impossibly expensive medicine that will, Force willing, save Poe’s mother’s life.

“Papa,” Poe says, surging forward to hug his father tightly. “Papa, you got it - how - what’s wrong?”

“I’ll - tell you after dinner,” Kes says, hugging Poe back fiercely, something broken in his voice. “For now, let’s just go tell your Mama the good news.”

*

Shara drinks her first dose of the precious, priceless medicine not ten minutes later, and as Poe watches, the color seeps slowly back into her cheeks, and for the first time in _months_ she smiles, slow and sweet, and says, “Oh, darlings, that’s - astonishing.”

And then she slips into a real, healthy sleep, breath deep and even without the horrid racking note which has made her husband and son so terrified for so long, and Poe and Kes sneak back downstairs as quietly as they can, heat up some soup and eat it standing up at the kitchen counter and exchanging silent smiles that say clearer than words how their hope has finally been given back to them.

And then dinner is over, and Poe tugs his father out onto the back porch and sits him down under the Force tree that he’s always sort of thought of as his brother, planted as it was the day he was born, nearly equally beloved of his mother, and says, “Papa, tell me what that medicine cost you.”

Kes takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t find the medicine at the market,” he says slowly. Poe blinks. If not at the market, then - where? “I was on my way home and the hyperdrive shorted out,” Kes explains. “Ended up - I don’t know the name of the system. One world, tiny, almost uninhabited. I landed at the only place I could find to ask if they could fix my ship.”

“Obviously they did,” Poe points out. Kes shakes his head.

“It was - the strangest thing,” he says slowly. “It seemed like there was no one there at first, just this enormous old building in the middle of a desert. I went in, figured there was no point sitting on the doorstep and frying, and - empty. Just empty. But not _abandoned_ , just - like whoever owned it had stepped out just as I came in.”

He pauses, shakes his head again. “I found - a dining room, with a meal laid. I ate a little. And there was a flower on the table that looked - looked like the ones our tree puts out.”

They both look up at the tree. It hasn’t flowered in years, not since Shara came down with the dreadful wasting cough that’s been slowly killing her. She _loves_ the tree, almost as much as she loves her son and her husband, and Poe’s often thought that if only the tree would flower, his mother might recover.

“So I took it,” Kes sighs. “I thought - I thought no one would ever miss a single flower.”

“Someone did,” Poe says, throat dry with anticipatory horror.

“Yes,” Kes says, and Poe sees that horrible expression of despair on his father’s face again. “The - owner - came in. I don’t - I don’t know what species. Big. Ugly. Probably carnivorous, judging by the teeth.” He takes a deep breath. “Angry.”

“Kriff,” Poe whispers.

“It - he - wanted to know why I was stealing his flower. I told him about Shara, about her cough, about not being able to find the medicine and wanting _something_ that would help her, even a little. And he said - he said he’d give me the medicine. All I’d need, enough that she’d recover completely.”

“That’s...good, right?” Poe asks, knowing that somehow the answer is going to be ‘no’ but unable to imagine how.

“He wants - how did he put it. ‘Company.’ He said he’d let me come home, but I have to go back within the week, and if I don’t, he’ll come and get me - and our deal’s off.” Kes scrubs a hand over his face. “Force _damn_ it - she won’t be better before I have to leave. I’ll never even know if it _worked_.”

“Papa,” says Poe, slowly, “you _will_ know. I’ll go. He - he just wants company. I can be good company. And Mama needs you, needs you here with her.”

“I can’t let you do this for me,” Kes protests, reaching over to shake Poe by the shoulder. “This is not your price to pay!”

“She’s my Mama,” Poe retorts. “And she needs her husband. Tell her - tell her I’ve gone to the Outer Rim, been called away by my old squadron, something like that. Take care of her. She needs you more than she needs me.”

“Poe - son - that’s not true,” Kes protests, but Poe shakes his head sharply.

“It is, and you know it. If you go, you’ll be miserable and _she’ll_ be miserable and she might even relapse because she’s wanting you so bad. But if I go, Papa, you can tell her I got called away - I’ll leave a note, I’ll leave a _hundred_ notes - but she knows how I am, she knows I’d go if Jess or Snap or Nien called, now that I know she’ll be alright.”

“You should not have to pay my price,” Kes protests again, but Poe can hear the surrender in it.

“It’s mine if I say it is,” he says, leaning over to hug his father hard. “Let me do this thing for you, and for Mama. And besides - you know I’m better company than you are. We can’t - we can’t short our benefactor, can we now?”

“Your tongue is going to get you into real trouble one of these days,” Kes says, and Poe knows that he has won.

*

Poe goes over the ship in the morning, because how Kes got home with a dodgy hyperdrive somehow didn’t come up at all during the conversation the previous night, and finds to his bafflement that the whole ship is in better shape than Poe’s ever seen it. It looks like it just came off the factory lot, every piece gleaming and in perfect repair.

He sits back on his heels and blinks at the engine for a while. The only _odd_ things about it - aside from its spectacularly good condition at the moment - are the tiny flecks of sand stuck here and there. But Kes wouldn’t have opened the hatch in a _desert_ , so how did sand get in - and why isn’t it gumming up the works?

*

Poe stays on Yavin almost the entire week, stays long enough to see his mother _walking_ again, standing in the sunlight under the tree and smiling, color in her cheeks and strength in her hands and no horrid racking cough interrupting her words, and thinks as he leaves - in the dead of night, so his mother won’t see and ask questions he doesn’t dare answer - that for this, the mysterious ‘Beast’ his father bargained with has _earned_ Poe’s company, Poe’s gratitude. Shara is healing, finally, and Poe keeps the memory of his father’s beaming smile, the first day his mother managed to walk under her own power out onto the back porch, close to his heart as he pilots the old ship carefully along the route his father accidentally discovered.

This is going to leave his parents without a ship, but technically the old thing _is_ Poe’s, and they’ve got friendly neighbors. They’ll be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

The mysterious planet is just as Kes described it, all desert but for a single, enormous, looming building and its grounds. Poe sets down near the front doors, leaves the ship with a gentle pat to its closed hatch, and stands there looking up at his new - home? - residence for a while. It’s...big. Stone, grey stone blocks bigger than Poe, with lots of windows.

A breeze whirls around Poe, carrying sand in a tiny whirlwind, and Poe is slightly surprised that none of the sand sticks to his clothes or his skin or his hair. Come to think of it, by now in any _normal_ desert he’d be _breathing_ the damned stuff, but it seems like the sand in this strange place is keeping a polite distance from him, not encroaching on his personal space.

And, well, it’s such an odd situation that Poe finds himself murmuring, “Thanks, sand,” as he steps forward to meet his destiny.

He almost thinks the sand-spiral whirls faster for a moment at his words, but that would be...even crazier than the rest of this whole mad adventure.

The doors open at his touch, and the entrance hall is cool and dim after the blazing sun of the desert outside. Poe wanders down it, staying on the stone floor to one side of the intricately woven carpet so as not to track sand and dust all over it, looking with interest at the statuettes on the tables and the tapestries on the walls and the occasional dark wooden doors with their huge curving bronze handles. It’s a remarkably beautiful house, though as Kes said, it’s echoingly empty.

Except for Poe, and Poe’s...host.

And, Poe notes with some surprise as he turns to look back down the hall at the half-open door to the desert, the little sand whirlwind, which is following him several yards back. It hesitates when it sees him looking at it - if Poe didn’t know any better, he’d say it looks _shy_.

How the hell a sand whirlwind can look shy, Poe couldn’t actually say. But it does.

“Hi,” he says, for lack of anything better to do. And then, putting two and two together to get several billion, adds, “Hey, did you fix my ship, last time it was here?”

The sand whirlwind gets a little taller, like someone puffing themselves up proudly. “You did?” Poe asks, grinning. “You did an _awesome_ job. Thank you.”

The whirlwind spins a little faster. Poe thinks maybe that means it’s...pleased? Can little sand whirlwinds be pleased?

“D’you have a name?” he asks it curiously, hunkering down on his heels so he can see it a little better.

From behind him, the deepest voice he’s ever heard, deep enough to make his bones shiver, says quietly, “Her name is Rey.”

Poe slews around on his heels and loses his balance and ends up sprawled on his back on the cold stone floor staring up in astonished dismay and more than a little fear at -

Well, this must be the Beast. He’s...furry. And very, very large. And there are definitely some very large teeth in that mouth, and some very large claws on those hands. Part of Poe very much wants to run for the open door; part of him wants to hold very still and hope the predator won’t see him. But the rest of Poe has never had a very good self-preservation instinct, and so he says, “Rey’s a nice name.”

Rey the sand whirlwind comes up beside him, whirling very fast indeed, and moves to - stand? Do whirlwinds stand? - between Poe and the Beast, who takes a slow, silent step back, and laughs, deep enough to make the stone shake.

“Rey says I walk too quietly,” he says, somewhat apologetically, and Poe scrambles to his feet and dusts himself off and gives the Beast his very best charming smile.

“I mean, it’s your house, you can walk around incredibly quietly if you _want_ to,” he says. “I’m - I’m Poe Dameron. I’m here to - to be company for you. My father sends his thanks for the medicine.”

“...And his son,” the Beast rumbles. Poe bristles, though the tone was mild enough.

“I chose to come, because depriving my mother of her husband just when she needs him most might kill her,” he snaps. The Beast bows his head a little, looking somehow sheepish even with the claws and fangs and all.

“Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to insult your father. He was much braver than almost anyone else who’s come here.”

“Only almost?” Poe asks, regaining his equilibrium and keeping the question light with an effort.

“No one else has ever dared to talk back to me,” the Beast says mildly, and Poe gapes, because that - that was almost certainly a _compliment_. “If you come with me,” the Beast adds, “I’ll show you your rooms.”

“Sure,” says Poe, a little weakly. “Rooms. Right.”

Rey the sand whirlwind chooses to drift along beside Poe as he follows in his host’s wake. She’s about half Poe’s height, and she makes a very soft shushing noise as she moves. Tiny specks of sand mark her path, and Poe, looking around carefully, can see other gleaming trails here and there in the corridors they pass. So she’s a regular...visitor? Inhabitant?

“You can talk to Rey, then?” he asks as the Beast leads them up a flight of broad, shallow stairs. Rey climbs them easily, floating from one riser to the next. It’s mildly disconcerting.

“Yes,” the Beast replies. “I...learned to hear her some time ago.”

“What _is_ she?”

“Herself,” says the Beast quellingly, and Poe bites his lip. Okay, no asking nosy questions about the sand whirlwind.

“This is a very beautiful building,” he says instead. Rey gets a little taller beside him, looking - proud? Should Poe be assigning emotions to a sand whirlwind? But apparently she _talks_ , so…

“Rey keeps it up,” the Beast says. “She can fix anything.” He stops in the middle of a long corridor and opens the nearest door. “These will be your rooms.”

Poe steps in. They’re...beautiful rooms, he has to admit, with enormous windows and thick carpeting and a bed that looks positively sinful. Out the windows, he can actually see his ship, which is sort of nice, knowing it’s there and he can get to it if he needs to; and he can see the building’s grounds, which are green and full of flowers - and, yes, a tree like the one back on Yavin, a few stubborn flowers blooming in its branches.

“This is lovely,” he tells the Beast, who smiles - at least Poe assumes it’s a smile, though the abundance of very sharp white teeth is rather disconcerting.

“I’ll let you get settled in,” the Beast says. “Will you join me for dinner?”

“Sure,” Poe says, and the Beast pads away, silent as dawn, leaving Poe and Rey in Poe’s new, enormous, echoing rooms.

“...So,” says Poe after a minute. “D’you want to show me around the rest of the place?”

Rey _bounces_ , whirling fast and happy, and drifts eagerly back and forth between Poe and the door. Poe laughs and follows her out.

Rey is a surprisingly good tour-guide, for being a two-foot-tall sand whirlwind with no effective means of communication. She leads Poe through the main halls, pausing expectantly at doors she thinks he’ll be interested in, and Poe opens the doors to find a whole array of fascinating things, from an art gallery that looks like it should be on the capitol world to a library larger than Poe’s parents’ house to the gleaming kitchens and - best of all - a mechanic’s workshop. All of the tools have odd marks on the handles, like they’ve been -

Like they’ve been sandblasted.

Poe blinks down at Rey, who whirls silently. How, exactly, does a sand whirlwind use tools? But clearly she _does_. Kriff, she fixed Poe’s ship - somehow. Inexplicably.

Poe thinks that she’s somehow managing to whirl _smugly_ as she leads him off again, up a flight of stairs to - ah. The dining hall.

*

The Beast is waiting, standing near an enormous fireplace and staring into the tiny flickering flames. Poe glances at the windows to see that the sun has gone down, and from what he knows about deserts they _do_ get cold during the night; perhaps the fire is more than merely decorative.

Rey leaves him there, vanishing silently back down the stairs, and Poe takes a deep breath and crosses the broad hall to join his host beside the fireplace. The Beast gives him what Poe suspects is a surprised look. Why is it so much easier to read a _sand whirlwind’s_ emotions than this humanoid’s?

“Beautiful place,” Poe says, voice ringing oddly in the silence. “Big for one person.”

The Beast actually huffs a laugh. “If you can call me a person.”

Poe startles. “Of course you’re a _person_ ,” he says, scandalized. “I mean, okay, I have _no_ idea what species you are, but you’re no furrier than - than a Wookiee, and I’ve seen bigger claws on smaller people.”

The Beast is regarding him curiously. “Most people don’t seem to agree with you,” he points out. “Usually they run screaming. Sometimes they shoot at me.”

“Yes, well, people are idiots sometimes, what else is new,” Poe says, waving a hand dismissively, and is delighted when this earns him another huff of laughter. “I bet none of them were smart enough to notice _Rey_ was a person, either, so clearly you have just been having an inferior quality of guests until now.”

“Clearly,” the Beast agrees, with another low chuckle.

A dish clinks behind them, and Poe turns to see that the table has been set. Rey is bobbing proudly next to it. Poe decides not to try to figure out how a sand whirlwind is capable of _cooking_ \- these and other things, man was not meant to know - and glances over at his host, who gestures politely towards the table.

“Please, help yourself.”

The Beast sits when Poe does, but doesn’t eat, just watches quietly while Poe investigates the contents of the many lovely dishes. How did Rey have _time_ to cook all of this, anyway? None of it was in evidence when she showed him the kitchens.

“...Don’t you want any?” he asks after a few moments, and holds out the platter of steaming fresh bread. He’s trying not to think about the fact that the Beast is clearly a carnivore, and there’s enough food on this table to fatten Poe up _nicely_. But neither Rey nor the Beast has yet been anything but perfectly polite, so Poe’s going to try not to assign them villainous motives without cause.

“I...don’t eat tidily,” the Beast apologizes. “It...upsets people. Those few who ever stay long enough to see it.”

Poe thinks about that, then shrugs. “Eh, but we’ve already established that people are idiots,” he points out. “And there is no way in _hell_ I can eat all of this, but it’d be a crying shame for any of it to go to waste. Rey, you are a _wonder_ of a cook.”

Rey spins smugly. Poe has _no_ idea how she manages that.

“If you’re sure,” the Beast says reluctantly, and takes a slice of bread between two claws so delicately the bread doesn’t even dent. Poe is impressed. That’s a level of dexterity he was not expecting.

As promised, the Beast does not eat tidily, but it’s honestly far less messy than Poe was expecting. ‘Untidy’ rather than ‘horrifying’ or ‘disgusting.’ Poe can cope with ‘untidy.’ He used to babysit, now and again, for pocket money, and the Beast has _nothing_ on Gitasree Kalonia, who used to try her very best to get her mashed peas onto every square inch of skin she had.

Poe gives the food his full attention, as is only polite, until he’s actually uncomfortably full, and then he sits back and smiles at Rey, who bounces a little in pleasure, and then at the Beast, who is carefully wiping his claws with a napkin. It’s an oddly incongruous scene.

“So you told my Papa you wanted company,” he says quietly.

The Beast looks up, meets his eyes, and Poe realizes with some astonishment that the Beast has _beautiful_ eyes, dark and warm and lovely. If Poe had only seen those eyes, he would never have been scared of the Beast at all.

“I do,” he rumbles. “No offense to Rey - but there’s...something I need, that she can’t give me. She’s as caught up in it as I am.”

“In what?” Poe asks curiously. The Beast shakes his head.

“Can’t say,” he rumbles, sounding irritated, but not, Poe thinks, at _Poe_. “There’s...reasons. But she can’t do what needs to be done. Needs to be someone from outside. Someone who isn’t...involved the way we are.”

“...And you can’t tell me what that is,” Poe says carefully.

“It won’t hurt you,” the Beast assures him. “Or anyone else, for that matter. But no, I can’t tell you.”

“...So I get to guess,” Poe says, and shrugs. “Okay, I’m game. Can you give me hints?”

The Beast laughs, a low joyful rumble. “I don’t think _he_ planned for _you_ , Poe Dameron,” he says. “I’ll...see about hints. And Rey will, too.”

Poe is vastly curious about that ‘he,’ but he doesn’t ask, and when the Beast rises from the table and offers one clawed hand to help Poe up, Poe takes it.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining the Beast’s look of blank astonishment, either. But if the Beast had wanted to harm him, Poe would be dead already. Since he isn’t, well, it’s hardly the _Beast’s_ fault that he’s enormous and furry and clawed and fanged. Poe’s not going to be an ass about it.


	3. Chapter 3

He sleeps very well in the enormous bed, wakes to a tray outside his bedroom door with caf and sweet buttered bread and fresh fruit and a single grain of sand in the corner, like a signature. It’s all delicious.

Poe glances out the window when he’s done eating, to sort of check on his ship, and sees Rey and the Beast both out on the grounds, the hard-won green patch in the desert. He digs around in the vast closet he’s been given until he finds a long-sleeved shirt and a big floppy hat - no point getting sunburned - and ventures down to join them.

The Beast, Poe learns when he arrives in the gardens, is - amusingly - weeding. His enormous claws actually do very good work as trowels. He looks up as Poe approaches, and gives Poe what Poe suspects is a friendly smile, though the abundant fangs do complicate it a bit. “Good morning!” he rumbles.

“Good morning,” Poe replies cheerfully. “You have lovely gardens.” It’s quite true - they are large and well-kept, with blooming flowers everywhere.

“They’re mostly Rey’s - I just help with the weeding,” the Beast says amiably. Rey bobs a little. She’s whirling near a watering can which is watering the plants all by itself. It’s...actually very disconcerting, and Poe looks away quickly, catches sight of the tree which could be twin to his mother’s, and frowns in confusion.

“Why are there so many weeds over by the tree?” For that matter, the tree looks _sick_ , its branches wan and drooping, its flowers sparse. Poe knows what a sick Force tree looks like, and this is it. It’s baffling, considering how healthy the _rest_ of the garden is.

The Beast sighs. “We can’t get close to it,” he says mournfully. “It gets sicker when we do. So we can’t weed around it, or even water it properly.”

Poe blinks at the Beast. “Oh come now,” he says. “Force trees might get sick when their masters do, but you’re clearly healthy, and the only _other_ thing I’ve ever heard of that hurts them is the Dark Side of the Force.”

The Beast raises an enormous eyebrow at him and gestures to himself. Poe frowns.

“Okay, yes, you _look_ like something out of a nightmare, but that doesn’t mean you _are_ evil, and in any case once you get past the claws and fangs you kind of look like you’d be nice to pet.”

The Beast’s great huffing laugh echoes off the stone walls of the castle. “Nice to _pet_?” he asks incredulously. “Poe Dameron, you are _insanely_ fearless.”

Poe shrugs. “I’m a fighter pilot,” he points out. “Being insanely reckless is sort of in the job description. And you’ll notice I haven’t _actually_ tried to pet you.” Throwing courtesy to the winds, he adds, “What species _are_ you, anyhow? I’ve never met anyone else like you.”

The Beast glances over at Rey, still watering her flowers with her disconcerting floating watering can. “At the moment? I have no idea.”

Poe considers that for a while. “That...implies that you were something else, once.”

The Beast nods. “Yes, it does. That’s a hint, by the way.”

Poe bursts into delighted laughter. “Okay then!” he says. “Right. So to get back to my _initial_ point - I refuse to believe you and Rey are Darksiders. You’re too nice. So what about you bothers the tree?”

The Beast sighs. “We’re not - Rey and I, we’re not _of_ the Dark Side. You’re right about that. But - that doesn’t mean we haven’t been _influenced_ by it. And that’s as much as I can say.” He looks - it’s hard to tell with all the fur, but he looks like he might actually be in pain.

“Huh, two hints in one morning,” Poe says. “Want me to go weed around the tree?” It’s not a _graceful_ subject change, but the Beast relaxes, the hint of pain going out of his face, and nods.

“That would be very kind of you,” he says, and Poe spends the rest of the morning kneeling in the shade of the Force-tree, hauling enormous weeds out of the ground. He has to go bathe before lunch, because _ick_. But on the plus side, he does get to have really quite a decent conversation with the Beast and Rey (via the Beast) about the plants in the garden. Rey is apparently very invested in her plants.

And the tree looks happier when Poe is done, though he hasn’t gotten _nearly_ all the weeds. “Damn,” he says as he stands, stretching to get the kinks out of his back. “It feels like there are _centuries_ of weeds over here.”

Rey does a sort of striated whirl that Poe is starting to think is her laugh, and the Beast says, “Not quite that long, thank the Force.”

“Yeah,” Poe says slowly. “I’d hate to think of the two of you being trapped here that long. Because you are, aren’t you - trapped, I mean.”

“Basically, yes,” the Beast says. Rey gets smaller, her whirling slow and sort of sad.

“Well, that’s awful,” Poe concludes. The Beast shakes his head in what looks like wonder.

“You may be the first other person to think so,” he rumbles.

“Well, we’ve already established that everyone else who’s visited has been an idiot, except of course my Papa,” Poe retorts cheerfully, and goes in to wash the dirt off before either of his hosts can come up with a reply.

*

He explores the castle again after lunch, opening doors at random, and finally ends up curled in the massive library with a history of the First Order War that he hasn’t seen before. It’s well-written, not at all academic, and parts of it seem to be from the point of view of the _Stormtroopers_ , which is fascinating. Even if all of it is made up, it’s an incredibly detailed and compassionate look at a group of people Poe has never really thought about much.

Over dinner that night, the Beast asks Poe to tell him about what he’s seen out in the galaxy, far from this tiny desert planet with its isolated sun, and Poe talks for what he suspects is hours. Rey and the Beast both seem fascinated - the leftovers get cold on the table, the fire burns low, while Rey hovers beside his chair and the Beast watches him with enormous dark eyes and asks all the questions Rey passes on to him and a hundred others of his own. It’s so late it’s early by the time Poe makes it up to bed, leaning inelegantly on the Beast’s arm as he stumbles up the stairs, and he’s so tired, he actually _does_ stroke a hand over the Beast’s thick, dark fur.

“‘S soft,” he says, grinning up into the Beast’s astonished face.

“...I guess it is,” the Beast replies slowly. “And _you_ are exhausted. I’m sorry we kept you up so late.”

“Hey, buddy, don’t apologize,” Poe says sternly - or as sternly as he can while swaying slightly with exhaustion. “I was having fun, too. And I’m a grown man - if I’d wanted to leave earlier I would’ve.”

“You’re going to fall over in a moment,” the Beast points out, clearly vastly amused, and Poe gives his host his very best indignant look and goes stumbling into his room, where he does indeed fall over - but onto the bed, so it hardly counts.

He’s asleep before the door closes behind him.

*

Poe makes it out into the garden very late the next morning, and only gets in about half an hour of pulling weeds before lunch, but his hosts don’t tease him about it, so that’s alright. Rey coaxes him down to her workshop with him after lunch, and Poe spends the afternoon being a spare pair of hands for an animate sandstorm, which is at the very least a unique experience. The Beast comes down to join them in the late afternoon and laughs for rather a long time at the sight of Poe being - scolded? Probably scolded - by a tiny sand whirlwind that he can’t actually understand, but then he takes up translation duties and also holds things when told to, so Poe can’t mind too much.

“Rey says you clearly know what you’re doing, which is refreshing after dealing with my complete lack of skill for so long,” he informs Poe, who grins up at him. They’re holding a...thing, Poe’s not entirely sure what it is, so that Rey can rivet it, which necessitates being rather close together. Poe’d mind more, but the Beast smells sort of spicy and nice, and is holding more than half the weight of the thing.

“I repair my own ship, most of the time,” Poe points out. “Though I’m absolute crap at soldering, she should definitely do all of that if there’s any to be done.”

“She says that’s good to know,” the Beast reports, snickering. “And adds that I should never be anywhere near a soldering iron, because singed fur smells disgusting.”

“...She can smell?” Poe asks curiously.

“Sort of,” the Beast says, shrugging a little. “Her senses aren’t like ours anymore, but she gets by.”

“Buddy,” Poe says, “when I get the full story of whatever the kriff is going on here, it’s going to blow my mind, isn’t it?”

“It’s possible,” the Beast replies, with a broad cheerful grin which, okay, yes, has too many sharp teeth in it, but is clearly friendly nonetheless.

*

It’s not till dinner that second full day that Poe realizes he doesn’t know the Beast’s name, and is instantly mortified. Kriff, he knows _Rey’s_ name, and Rey and the Beast know _his_ ; how did he forget to ask the name of his actual _host_?

So he asks, over dinner.

To his more than mild horror, the Beast shrugs. “I’ve never actually had one,” he says, sounding a little wistful. “Actually, that’s a hint.”

“Your _not having a name_ is a _hint_?” Poe asks, baffled and horrified. The Beast shrugs again.

“Of a sort,” he says.

“That’s - that’s - buddy, that’s _awful_ ,” Poe says finally, unable to find any better words. “What, it’s not bad enough you end up as some sort of unspecified not-really-Wookiee on a backwater desert planet with limited if charming company, you also don’t even have a _name_?”

Rey - laughs, Poe figures he’d better think of it as a laugh, the way the bands of dark and light sand shiver when she’s amused - and the Beast chuckles low enough to shake the floor.

“These days, ‘Beast’ suits me pretty well,” he points out.

“Well, okay, I guess,” Poe says, reluctantly. “But, I mean, you’re not _just_ \- you’re not some sort of mindless animal.”

For some reason, this seems to blackly amuse the Beast, who laughs for a long time, sounding as though the noise is almost ripped out of him.

“No,” he says at last. “No, I’m not a mindless animal. Which would surprise a great many people, I suspect.”

Poe grimaces. “Is that a hint?”

“It could be,” the Beast allows.


	4. Chapter 4

Poe’s days fall into a pattern after that. In the morning, before the sun gets too blazingly hot, he helps Rey and the Beast in the garden, weeding and watering around the Force tree where they cannot go and listening to the Beast translate Rey’s cheerful chatter about the plants she’s managed to grow in this inhospitable climate. In the afternoons, he either holes up in the library with the absolutely _fascinating_ history of the First Order War - he’s never seen _anything_ like this take on the whole mess - or goes down to help Rey in her workshop. About half the time, the Beast joins him, curling up in an oversized armchair in the library or helping hold heavy things in Rey’s workshop; the other half the time, Poe’s not sure where his host is, but assumes it’s none of his business. As the days go by and they become more comfortable with each other, the Beast moves from his armchair to sprawl on the floor beside Poe’s chair, and Poe, feeling greatly daring, will sometimes run his fingers through the Beast’s thick fur, and revel in the purring noises that elicits. The Beast _is_ very soft and pleasant to touch, despite the fangs and claws and all, and seems to enjoy being petted.

They all meet at dinner, whether they’ve spent the afternoon apart or not, and Poe tells stories of what he’s seen of the galaxy, to the clear delight of his tiny audience.

It’s...oddly pleasant, actually, except for the bit where Poe can’t leave and isn’t entirely sure if his mother really has recovered.

And when he mentions the second half of that problem to the Beast, his host smacks one enormous clawed paw to his own forehead and says, “I’m so sorry. Come with me; I can show her to you.”

Poe follows the Beast into an entirely new area of the castle, through a door which is normally quite thoroughly locked, and up a spiraling flight of stairs to a tower room which is clearly the Beast’s bedroom, judging by the enormous nest of sturdy pillows in the corner. There’s very little actual furniture in this room, apart from the pillows and - incongruously - an enormous mirror on one wall. The Beast ushers Poe over to the mirror.

“Rey made this, years ago,” he says, tracing one claw very gently down the frame. “It can show anything in the galaxy.” He leans forward and breathes on the glass, his breath fogging it, and commands, quietly, “Show us Poe Dameron’s mother.”

The glass clears, and Poe steps forward in wonder at the sight of his mother sitting under the Force tree in their backyard, laughing gleefully at something his father has just said. She looks - she looks strong and healthy, well and hale and everything Poe could wish.

“This is - now?” he asks, hardly daring to hope. The Beast nods.

“It shows what’s happening now unless you ask it to show the past,” he confirms. “This is your mother as she is at this moment.” In the mirror, Poe’s Mama laughs again, tilting her head back and beaming up at the flowering branches of the Force tree.

“I will bring you here every day, if you like,” the Beast offers, voice a low and almost comforting rumble. “I - I’m sorry that I’m keeping you from her. Whatever I can do to make your - your stay here easier, I will.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Poe says. “And - for this? For knowing my Mama is safe and hale and well, when she was at death’s door before your aid? You could keep me in a _dungeon_ and I would thank you for it nonetheless. Whatever you want of me, ever, it’s yours.”

“Why would I want to keep you in a dungeon?” the Beast asks, looking baffled. “I don’t think I even _have_ a dungeon.”

Poe puts his hands on his hips and tries his best to look scandalized. “No _dungeon_? Well, I never! Think of a self-respecting Beast having a castle with no _dungeon_!”

He is rewarded with the Beast’s deep, huffing laugh.

*

After that, Poe comes up to the Beast’s rooms every day for half an hour or so, to watch his mother grow ever stronger and healthier. He was completely honest when he told the Beast that he would have paid _anything_ for such a miracle; to be required only to live in luxury, with pleasant companions, and figure out a mystery of some sort is a small price indeed.

Though he’s still not sure what the mystery’s solution _is_. His little collection of clues is baffling. His tentative conclusions, thus far, are that the Beast was transformed into his current shape by some Dark-Side Force user; that Rey, too, was transformed; that it happened quite some time ago, judging by the weeds around the tree which Poe has been steadily clearing; and that they would both like to be changed back, which Poe considers quite understandable really.

 _How_ he’s supposed to change them back, though, still baffles him. None of the Beast’s hints have really helped with that aspect of the mystery.

He says as much to Rey, one day as he’s helping her put together a speeder engine (Force only knows why a small sand whirlwind wants a speeder, but Poe’s not going to ask). He gets the distinct impression that Rey is frustrated, but other than that, he can’t read her - is it body language on a sandstorm? - her aspect, he decides.

He finds out what she’s decided to do about it that night at dinner.

The table is set with the fanciest silverware he’s seen yet, and the finest china. There are roses everywhere. Every single dish is something Poe recognizes as an aphrodisiac. And the dessert is a wedding cake.

Poe stares at the spread for a while and then he puts his head in his hands and laughs until he can’t breathe anymore, falling out of his chair and curling up on the floor and _wailing_ with mirth, while the poor Beast paces and flails and, Poe suspects, would be blushing furiously if he could blush. Rey is distinctly smug.

“So,” says Poe, when he’s gotten his breath back and drunk some water and made it back into his chair. “Do I need to fuck you, or marry you, or fall in love with you?”

The Beast puts his paws over his face. “Could you - ask those questions one at a time?”

Poe grins. “Do I need to marry you?”

The Beast shakes his head.

“Do I need to fuck you?”

The Beast shakes his head harder, and Poe _distinctly_ hears a moan of mortification.

“Do I need to love you?”

“...I can’t answer that,” the Beast says, which is, of course, all the answer Poe needs.

Well. Okay then.

“I can’t promise that,” Poe says slowly. “But - I can promise that I’ll try.”

“We can hardly ask more,” the Beast says, and lowers his paws so he can glare at Rey. “Though I might have wished for a more _subtle_ method of...introducing the topic.”

“Um. Yes. Subtle, this wasn’t,” Poe says.

Rey continues to be smug. The Beast sighs. “As Rey says - it worked.”

Poe grins at the little sand whirlwind. “Subtlety is overrated, is it?”

Rey’s laughter shivers over her sand, and Poe can’t help laughing along.

*

Poe doesn’t really let himself think about it properly until the next morning, while he’s pulling weeds in companionable silence with his hosts. _Could_ he love the Beast?

Certainly he finds his host friendly, helpful, almost painfully sweet at times. He looks forward to seeing him - if the Beast does not spend the afternoon in Poe’s company, Poe is desperately eager for dinner and the promise of his host’s conversation. He hasn’t been actively _scared_ of the Beast in weeks, even when the Beast forgets that he walks so softly and appears as if out of nowhere behind Poe’s shoulder. Those enormous claws are only ever used for digging up weeds, after all, and the Beast has never once made a single threatening gesture towards Poe. And honestly, once Poe started to see past the fangs and claws and all, it’s not as though the Beast is _ugly_. Just furry. And he has _lovely_ eyes, and his fur is soft and pettable, and he makes little purring noises when he’s happy and laughs deep enough to shake the stone around them, leans into Poe’s hand when Poe runs his fingers through his fur and watches Poe watch his mother in the mirror with endless compassion in his gaze and takes delight in everything.

But... _love_. Poe knows what love looks like from the outside. It looks like the way his mother lights up when his father walks in the door. It looks like the gentleness in his father’s hands as he tucks a blanket around his mother. It looks like joy and utter contentment in another’s company. But he’s never felt that himself.

He’s had lovers, casual and not-so-casual, but he’s never felt for any of them the sort of bone-deep desperate adoration his parents have for each other, and he’s never quite been willing to settle for less. He loves his parents, he loves his fellow pilots - but does he love the Beast?

 _Can_ he love the Beast?

*

Poe is still puzzling over that question nearly a week later as he trots up the stairs to the Beast’s room and the mirror which shows his mother. He’s distracted entirely, however, by what he sees in the mirror: his mother, bent over and coughing, while his father watches with horror and despair in his eyes.

Poe finds himself pressed up against the mirror as though he could step through and change what he sees. Behind him, the Beast makes a soft, horrified sound.

“I must not have sent enough medicine,” he says. “I -”

Poe whirls around to look up into the Beast’s face, sees the sorrow in those lovely eyes, braces himself to hear that he cannot go, and the Beast - the Beast says, “You have to take her more.”

Poe flings his arms around his - friend, yes, the Beast is his friend before all else - and clings for a while. The Beast pats him very gingerly on the back, careful of his claws.

“Thank you,” Poe babbles, muffled by the fur under his face. “Thank you, thank you, I - there are no _words_ to thank you enough -”

The Beast chuckles, softly, and pats Poe again. “I said I’d heal her in return for your company, and I meant it,” he rumbles. “Come downstairs, and we’ll get that for you - you can be home by dinnertime.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Poe says again, and follows the Beast down to the gardens.

The Beast takes a deep breath, looking up at the Force tree, and says, “Would you pick me - three flowers, I think, should do it.”

“It’s made of flowers?” Poe asks, choosing the biggest ones he can find and plucking them very carefully. They fall into his hands as though they know what he needs and wants to help. “But wait - that means the first batch you would have had to risk hurting the tree.”

The Beast nods. “It was - a calculated risk,” he says, and shrugs. “I’d tell you to use the flowers from _your_ tree, but this one is - stronger, I think, than yours. And the medicine is made with Rey’s powers, anyway.”

Rey obligingly does - something, Poe’s not entirely sure what - to the flowers when they explain the situation to her, and barely an hour later Poe is holding the priceless vial of medicine in his hands. It’s larger than the first one his father brought home, enough to cure his mother completely if Rey and the Beast are correct, and Poe trusts them.

The Beast puts a clawed paw over Poe’s hand. “Go quickly, Poe Dameron, and save your mother,” he rumbles softly. “But please - come back before a week has passed. Without you around, I think the tree will start to fade again, and when the tree is dead - well.”

“You’ll be stuck,” Poe guesses. “Regardless of whether I love you or not.”

The Beast nods solemnly. Poe bends, impulsively, and kisses one of the Beast’s great claws. “I’ll come back,” he promises. “You’re my friends, and I never leave my friends behind.”

The Beast smiles down at him. “I could,” he says quietly, “be content to be a monster forever, if I were also Poe Dameron’s friend.”

“You’re not a monster,” Poe says fiercely. “And I’ll be back before you know it.”

The Beast smiles wider. “Go,” he says, and Poe goes.

*

His ship is, of course, in perfect condition - Rey has been at it, Poe knows, and she’s relentless when it comes to making sure things are well repaired - but Poe can’t relax into the joy of flying the way he normally does. He’s nervous about going home, about getting the medicine to his mother in time - though if this was the first relapse, she’s probably still strong - but also, to his astonishment, nearly as nervous about leaving Rey and the Beast behind. He’s been living with them for months now - longer than he’s lived with any of his former lovers, actually - and leaving them is an almost physical pain.

When he lands, his father comes out to greet him with an expression of naked hope on his face, and Poe hugs his Papa hard for a long time, then pulls away to grab the precious vial out of its protective box. “For Mama,” he explains, and Kes has to turn away and wipe his eyes for a moment. Poe pretends he doesn’t see the tears of joy.

Poe’s mother meets him at the door, hugs him as hard as his father did, and pulls away to look him up and down and nod. “You’re looking well,” she says approvingly.

“So are you,” Poe says, and it’s the truth - his Mama looks _far_ better than she did when he left, strong and beautiful as she was when he was a child. “I brought you more medicine,” he explains. “I - it’s sort of complicated - but I know you need it.”

“...This is a story I must hear,” Shara says, and herds her son and her husband out onto the back porch, pausing only to pour herself a dose of the priceless medicine and then put the rest of it carefully away where it won’t be broken or spilled. Poe settles down under the familiar shade of his brother-tree, grinning up at his parents, and tries to figure out what to say.

But it’s his father who breaks the silence, grinning widely. “So that monster let you go, did it?”

Poe frowns. “He’s not a monster, Papa,” he objects. “He - he’s got a mirror that lets him see the rest of the galaxy, and he lets me use it to watch you and Mama. When we saw Mama was falling ill again, he said himself I’d have to come and bring her more of the cure. But I have to go back, Papa - I promised.”

His father looks him over carefully and scowls. “How long’s he going to keep you, then? Until you’re as grey as I am? What does a creature like that want with you, anyhow?”

Poe waves his hands, trying to find the right words. “It’s not _like_ that, Papa! He’s - he’s _lonely_.” Poe’s not going to say anything about the curse, not now anyway. “It’s just him and - and one other in that big old building, and everyone who’s ever found the place has run away screaming. It’s hardly _his_ fault he’s - not one of the common species.”

Shara leans forward in her chair, eyes bright. “He’s good to you, then, this not-a-monster?”

“He _is_ ,” Poe tells her eagerly. “He’s funny, and he likes to listen to my stories, and he’s never anything but kind. He likes to garden - or, well, he doesn’t really like to garden as much as his friend does, but he spends every morning weeding because it makes her happy. He reads really bad romance novels so he can laugh at the horrible prose. He - he’s just really, really nice, Mama.”

Shara considers this for a while, while Kes blinks in astonishment. “And you love him,” she says at last. “Don’t you.”

It’s not a question. Poe gapes at her. “I - I -”

Shara chuckles. “Come now. You think I can’t tell when my own son is in love? It shines out of you.”

“He’s my friend,” Poe protests weakly.

“You have never told me about Jess, or Iolo, or Nien, or any of your other friends so - so joyfully,” Shara points out. “You’re far more likely to call your friends ‘those fluff-headed nerf-herders I put up with’ than to wax eloquent about their better qualities. I know you adore them, but that’s different from how you speak of this - what is his name?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Poe says, grimacing. “Says he never has.”

Shara chuckles, coughs, and chuckles again. “And so you’re not thinking even a little bit about giving him yours?”

Poe has a sudden and completely involuntary mental image of himself on one knee, offering an oversized ring and the Dameron name to the Beast - and his mental Beast smiles, dark lovely eyes crinkling at the corners, takes the ring and rumbles his acceptance in a voice like velvet and thunder - and oh. _Oh._

“Oh, kriff,” Poe says quietly, covering his face with his hands. “Well, _now_ I am.”

“Shara,” Kes says, half-desperate, “what are you _doing_?”

“I trust our son to know his mind and heart, and to have good judgment in companions,” Shara says mildly. “If he thinks this nameless not-a-monster of his is good enough to love, then I will welcome my son’s beloved with open arms.” Poe peeks out from between his fingers as his mother reaches over to put a hand on his father’s arm. “Don’t let guilt and fear blind you,” she murmurs, so soft Poe almost can’t hear it. “Poe knows this person a lot better than _you_ do, dearest, and I suspect he sees with clearer eyes.” She shakes Kes’s arm a little. “You know I’m right.”

Kes takes a long, deep breath and lets it out on a sigh. “Yes,” he admits, just as quietly, “I do.” And then, to Poe, he adds, “So. Tell us about our future son-in-law, then. And tell us how long we can expect you to stay before you need to go back.”

Poe lunges forward to hug his father, then his mother, and settles back down leaning against the tree to tell them every detail of the last few months, and of the wonderful Beast who has won his heart.


	5. Chapter 5

He stays three days, watching his mother grow stronger and healthier with every hour, helping his father with some of the chores that really need more hands (and which his mother has not been well enough to help with - though soon she will be as strong as she ever was), and regaling them with stories of his months in the Beast’s castle, of Rey’s talents and the beautiful garden and the Force tree which could be twin to the one in his parents’ backyard.

And then he goes back, back to a tiny nameless planet in a tiny nameless system, where his beloved waits for him.

The Beast and Rey are waiting for him when he sets his ship down, come hurrying across the sand to reach him, and Poe launches himself out of the ship and across the sun-hot sand to throw his arms around the Beast, clinging to him. The Beast rumbles a laugh, deep and joyous, and picks Poe up as easily as Poe might lift a child, swinging him around; and Poe sees, craning his neck, that Rey has grown much taller and is nearly dancing with what certainly looks like joy.

At last the Beast puts Poe down, and Poe leans back just enough to put his hands on the Beast’s broad chest and look up into lovely dark eyes and say, grinning so widely it hurts his cheeks, “Beast - Beast, I love you.”

The world goes away. Poe is caught up in rushing sand - though none of it touches him - and a roaring sound like a thousand waterfalls, is tumbling through space without a ship, half-deafened and utterly bewildered and more than a little terrified -

And then the world returns, and he finds himself kneeling on thick turf, looking up into the dark and lovely eyes of the stunningly beautiful young man kneeling in front of him.

Poe stares. He had sort of figured that when he broke the curse, the Beast would be human again, but there’s ‘human’ and there’s ‘astonishingly gorgeous’ - and this man is _distinctly_ the latter. He smiles, slow and sweet as sunrise, and Poe’s throat goes dry with the glory of it. Holy _kriffing_ hell.

There’s a cheer from beside them, and Poe looks over to see a young woman, hair tied up in a strange triple knot, dancing for glee on the wide green lawn which has replaced the sand beneath their feet. He can’t help looking further around, and - everything, _everything_ has changed. The castle is now a temple, a great beautiful structure that’s somehow both intimidating and welcoming. The desert has turned to grassland and forest. The only thing which still looks even _vaguely_ the same is the garden, and even then there’s something strange about the tree.

“You love me,” the beautiful young man says, drawing Poe’s attention back to him. Poe smiles helplessly at the man who was the Beast.

“Yeah,” he says. “I do.” And he leans forward and kisses his beloved for the first time.

Some uncounted time later, the young woman - Rey, it must be Rey - says, “If you two fuck on the grass in front of me, I’m going to dump a bucket of cold water on you, see if I don’t.”

Poe has to rest his head on his beloved’s shoulder and just laugh for a while. His beloved chuckles too, not quite as deep as the Beast’s laughter but just as beautiful.

“You would, too,” he says merrily, and climbs to his feet, offering Poe a hand up and then lacing their fingers together to keep their hands clasped. “Want to go sit in the garden while I explain everything?”

“That sounds good,” Poe says, and a scant few minutes finds them on a bench in the garden, Poe and his beloved tucked up together and Rey bouncing on and off the bench as she sees flowers that she wants to touch, weeds that need to be pulled.

“So,” says Poe’s beloved, slowly. “You read that book on the First Order War, I remember, your first week here.”

“I did,” Poe agrees.

“We were in it,” Poe’s beloved says. “I was a Stormtrooper.”

Poe gapes at him. His beloved shrugs. “My designation was FN-2187,” he says. “My first deployment, I refused to fire on unarmed villagers, and was ordered to report for reconditioning. I managed to steal a transport, but I was shot down on a desert planet - Jakku.”

“I know of Jakku,” Poe says, mind reeling.

“I met Rey there,” Poe’s beloved says, smiling at her as she buries her face in a blooming gardenia, inhaling the rich perfume gleefully. “She was a scavenger. We stole a ship and ran like hell when the First Order followed me there. We had - some adventures, mostly only interesting to the two of us -”

“I’ll want to hear all about them,” Poe says, and earns a broad, stunningly beautiful grin for that.

“Later. In any case, we discovered along the way that we are both Force-sensitive, and went looking for Jedi to teach us. We’d heard that the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker, was on this planet, in the old Jedi Temple,” Poe’s beloved gestures to the building that was, until very recently, a castle, “and came here to try and find him. But Kylo Ren got here first.”

Poe winces. Kylo Ren is a child’s boogeyman, the Dark Lord of the First Order, violent and evil and malevolent. Poe used to have nightmares about him.

“There wasn’t any sign of Skywalker when we got here,” Poe’s beloved goes on. “But Kylo Ren was waiting for us. We fought him, but we didn’t have any training, and we started losing pretty badly. He got cocky. He cursed us: me into the Beast, Rey to be the sandstorm. Cursed the whole world to barrenness and desert.” Poe’s beloved grins. “Which was, as it happens, a very bad life choice on his part.”

“Oh?” Poe asks. No one knows how Kylo Ren died, but every history agrees that he _did_ die, that General Leia Organa felt his death through the Force and everyone else with even a minor amount of Force-sensitivity confirmed it.

“You saw me when I was the Beast,” Poe’s beloved says. “And Rey was only small and harmless when she _chose_ to be. And the Beast was - immune, I guess, is the best word - to Kylo Ren’s powers.” He shrugs. “So I tore him into pieces, and Rey’s sands stripped the flesh from his bones.”

Poe boggles, and then laughs in delight. “He thought giving you foot-long claws would make you _less_ dangerous?”

“Don’t ask me how Darksiders’ minds work,” Poe’s beloved sighs, but he’s grinning. “Anyway. We couldn’t leave - his curse kept us here. So,” he shrugs, “we stayed. And you know the rest.”

“The First Order War ended fifty years ago,” Poe says. “Kriffing _hell_.”

Poe’s beloved shrugs again. “Honestly, it wasn’t so bad once we figured out how to talk,” he says. “The worst bit was being furry in a desert.”

Poe can’t help laughing at that, and then something that’s been percolating in the back of his mind since his beloved gave his designation takes proper form, and he says, “I can’t call you Beast anymore, and I _won’t_ call you FN-2187 - could I call you Finn?”

“Finn,” says Poe’s beloved, thoughtfully. “Finn. I like it!”

Rey turns from where she’s apparently having a conversation with a rosebush to grin at both of them. “Finn,” she says gleefully. “That’s a _good_ name.”

“So it is,” says a quiet voice behind the bench. They all three whirl around and stare.

*

The bearded old man standing behind them, leaning against the trunk of the Force tree, is instantly recognizable. Poe’s jaw drops. Finn makes a soft, incredulous noise. Rey comes up to stand beside the bench, staring wide-eyed.

“You’re _Luke Skywalker_ ,” she says, disbelievingly.

“So I am,” the bearded man says, smiling at her. “And I must thank you, Poe Dameron, for freeing me.”

“Um,” says Poe, boggling. “What?”

Luke Skywalker chuckles, and sits down on the grass beneath the tree, leaning back against it as though endlessly weary. “When Rey and - Finn - came here, they found that Kylo Ren had come before them,” he says slowly. “And so he had. He found me here, and we fought; and when he could not best me, he bound me, by a very clever trick, into this tree. My life was bound to it; its death would have been mine. But when you broke their curse, the sudden infusion of Lightside Force enabled me to break my own entrapment.”

“Oh, that’s _clever_ , that kriffing asshole,” Rey breathes. “So having us here was killing the tree, and killing the tree was killing _you_ , but we couldn’t leave _or_ get close enough to notice you were trapped!”

“He was regrettably very clever,” Luke Skywalker agrees. “I wish he had chosen to turn his talents to the Light.”

“...I just found Luke Skywalker,” Poe says faintly. “Kriffing _hell_.”

Luke Skywalker chuckles. “More than that,” he says amiably. “You have also rescued two of the more powerful Force-sensitive persons I have ever met, and if they agree, I shall be able to re-found the Jedi Order from this very temple, and begin to train them in the use of the Light Side of the Force.”

“Of course we’ll be Jedi,” Rey says instantly.

Finn frowns. “As long as I can still keep Poe,” he says, clasping Poe’s hand a little tighter. “I love him, and if I have to choose between Poe and being a Jedi, I’m going to choose Poe.”

“I am not such a fool as to try to separate the two whose love restored an entire world to health,” Luke Skywalker says dryly. “I think, in this new Order we will build, we will not be so cruel as to ban true love.”

“Then I’ll be a Jedi, too,” Finn says contentedly, and leans over to kiss Poe’s cheek. Poe goes very pink when Luke Skywalker chuckles. But he also fixes the man with a stern glare.

“Before anything else,” Poe says, “we are all going back to Yavin to meet my family.” He grins over at Finn. “Mama will want to have a hand in planning the wedding.”

“You don’t have to marry me if you don’t want to,” Finn says, looking slightly worried.

“Dear heart,” Poe tells him, raising Finn’s fingers to his lips and kissing the knuckles, “if you think I’m letting you go now that I’ve found you, then being cursed so long has addled your brain. I love you, and by the Force, I’m going to put a ring on your hand and give you my name, if you want it, and brag to the entire galaxy that I have a genuine hero for a husband.”

Finn’s delighted laughter is the most beautiful sound Poe has ever heard.

**Author's Note:**

> This one will update Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday - I'm busy Wednesday.
> 
> I have a tumblr! It is imaginarygolux.tumblr.com and I am having fun not knowing what the kriff I'm doing. Drop by!


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